You must die here—you must die here.
And their fear of death turns to hopeless resignation.
No one has spoken the thought out loud, but it came to them all at the same time. Clumsily, stiff-limbed, they climb back into the carts and huddle close together again, waiting to die.
They no longer hope for any help.
They press close, all with their own loved ones, to be with one another in death. Outside, their constant companion the storm sings a song of death, and the flakes build a huge, shining coffin around the carts.
Death comes slowly. The icy, biting cold penetrates every corner of the carts and all their pores, like poison seizing on limb after limb, gently, but never doubting that it will prevail,
The minutes slowly run away, as if giving death time to complete its great work of release. Long and heavy hours pass, carrying these desperate souls away into eternity.
The storm wind sings cheerfully, laughing in wild derision at this everyday drama, and the heedless moon sheds its silver light over life and death.
There is deep silence in the last cart of all. Several of those in it are dead already, others are under the spell of hallucinations brought on by the bitter cold to make death seem kinder. But they are all still and lifeless, only their thoughts still darting in confusion, like sudden hot flashes of lightning.
Josua holds his fiancée with cold hands. She is dead already, although he does not know it.
He dreams.
He is sitting with her in that room with its warm fragrance, the seven candles in the golden candlestick are burning, they are all sitting together as they once used to. The glowing light of the happy festival rests on smiling faces speaking friendly words and prayers. And others, long dead, come in through the doorway, among them his dead parents, but that no longer surprises him. They kiss tenderly, they exchange familiar words. More and more approach, Jews in the bleached garments of their forefathers’ time, and now come the heroes, Judas Maccabaeus and all the others; they all sit down together to talk and make merry. More come, and still more. The room is full of figures, his eyes are tiring with the sight of so many, changing more and more quickly, giving way to one another, his ear echoes to the confusion of sounds. There is a hammering and droning in his pulse, hotter and hotter—
And suddenly it is over. All is quiet now.
By this time the sun has risen, and the snowflakes, still falling, shine like diamonds. The sun makes the broad mounds that have risen overnight, covered over and over with snow, gleam as if they were jewels.
It is a strong, joyful sun that has suddenly begun to shine, almost a springtime sun. And sure enough, spring is not far away. Soon it will be bringing buds and green leaves back again, and will lift the white shrouds from the grave of the poor, lost, frozen Jews who have never known true spring in their lives.
To Pierre J Jouve
in fraternal friendship
THE WOMAN WAS STILL FAST ASLEEP, her breath coming full and strong. Her mouth, slightly open, seemed to be on the verge of smiling or speaking, and her curved young breasts rose softly under the covers. The first glimmer of dawn showed at the windows, but the light was poor this winter morning. Somewhere between darkness and day, it hovered uncertainly over sleeping things, veiling their forms.
Ferdinand had risen and dressed quietly, he himself did not know why. It often happened these days that, in the middle of working, he would suddenly pick up his hat and hurry out of the house, into the fields, striding faster and faster until he had walked to the point of exhaustion, and all at once found himself somewhere far away, in a place he did not know, his knees shaking and the pulse throbbing at his temples. Or he would suddenly freeze in the middle of an animated conversation and lose track of the words, failing to hear questions, and he would have to force himself back into awareness. Then again, he might forget what he was doing when he undressed in the evening, and would sit perfectly still on the edge of the bed, holding the shoe he had just taken off, until a word from his wife startled him out of his reverie or the shoe fell to the floor with a bang.
As he now left the slightly close atmosphere of the bedroom and stepped out on to the balcony, he shivered. Instinctively he drew his elbows in, closer to the warmth of his body. The landscape deep below him was still enveloped in mist. Dense, milky vapours hovered over the Lake of Zürich, which from his little house, perched high up here, usually looked as smooth as a mirror, reflecting every white cloud that hurried past in the sky. Wherever his eyes looked, whatever his hands felt, it was all damp, dark, slippery and grey. Water dripped from the trees, moisture trickled from the rafters of the house.
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